


The Saints Can't Help Me Now

by OzQueen



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sense8 (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Fortune Telling, Gen, Telepathy, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 09:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15793872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/pseuds/OzQueen
Summary: "We want answers," Clint says bluntly. "And be straight about it this time. No fairytale animal stories.""Ah," Madam Midnight says, "but the spider, and the falcon, and the ant? So many are part of your story, dear boy.""Fucking witches," Wolfgang says, shuffling impatiently beside him. "Fucking witches never tell the truth."





	The Saints Can't Help Me Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MeganMoonlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeganMoonlight/gifts).



> The timing of this makes absolutely zero sense -- there was no way to combine the canons without taking extreme liberties with each timeline :p I therefore encourage you to please join me in handwaving it with great enthusiasm.
> 
> I had so many ideas for this combination of fandoms, but as soon as MeganMoonlight mentioned Wolfgang and Clint, I was sold, and I wanted them dealing with this together. :D

* * *

The fortune teller's tent is dark and smokey, and full of velvet and fringe and twinkling gems. Clint rubs the short fuzz of the seat cushion under his dirty fingers, and watches Madam Midnight blink at her crystal ball.

"Why do you want to see your fortune when you are still so young?" she asks him. "Eight years old — there are so many surprises in front of you."

"I don't like surprises," Clint says. Trying to sound braver than he feels, he says, "Everyone knows fortunes are full of shit, anyway."

"Is that so?" She frowns at him over the clean, curving arch of her crystal ball.

Clint sniffs a runny nose and waits impatiently. "I paid," he reminds her.

"Paid for bullshit, apparently," she mutters. Her fingers are fat and pink, glittering with rings of gold and silver.

Clint presses his lips together and watches her stare into the crystal ball. Everyone likes to tell him that Madam Midnight is the biggest con artist in the whole darn show, but Clint has seen them all sneaking into her tent with coins and bundles of money to trade for their own stories.

He wants to know his story, too.

"I see a hawk," she tells him. Her voice is low. He watches her narrow her eyes at the smokey ball on the table between them.

His heart is beating fast. "Cool," he says, trying to keep his voice even.

Hawks are cool.

"And a wolf," she says. She blinks at him, her eyes black like coal.

 _Wolves are even cooler than hawks_ , Clint thinks. But he stares back at her, not saying anything, because he hasn't come here for animal stories.

"You are a very important young man," Madam Midnight says, after a long moment of quiet. Her gaze is heavy, and the air is thick with burning herbs and incense. Clint feels a strange itch in his chest, and for a moment he has the sensation of standing beside himself, watching everything like he's a ghost on the sidelines.

Madam Midnight does not smile. "A very important young man," she says.

"Why?" Clint asks.

"That," Madam Midnight says, looking at her crystal ball again, "appears to be a very long story."

 

* * *

 

Clint dreams of Berlin.

He doesn't know how he knows it's Berlin. The neighborhood doesn't have any sort of glamor or appeal, or any postcard kind of quality — the houses are small and poor, the streets are wet and cold. But he knows it's Berlin; it _feels_ like Berlin. (But it smells like the fortune teller's tent, and that's the only way he can tell he's dreaming.)

Nobody is around. It's too cold. It's so cold it gives him a headache; the air slices at the tips of his fingers and at his nose and his ears.

When Clint turns around, there's a small figure standing in the middle of the street, watching him. A skinny boy with split knuckles and a black eye.

They glare at one another defiantly, in silence, until Clint wakes up again. He's shivering under his blankets, his fingers and toes still prickle with the Berlin winter.

He pulls his blanket up to his ears and closes his eyes again, his teeth clenched and his muscles aching.

He thinks of the boy standing in the street, his knuckles scabbed, his face bruised. His eyes had been colder than the wind.

 _The wolf,_ Clint thinks. _The big bad wolf._

 

* * *

 

Clint is letting arrows fly in a field bathed in morning frost. The sun is at his back, and fall is coming — he can almost smell the apples and spice and the pumpkin jack-o-lanterns.

And then he smells Madam Midnight's tent again, burning in his nostrils and making his eyes water.

He blinks, and lets his final arrow go, and it thuds neatly into the middle of the target.

"You're good," the boy says. ( _The wolf,_ Clint thinks.)

"Thanks." Clint turns to look at him. Despite the time that has passed, he still expects to see him scabbed and bruised. But he's not. Not anywhere Clint can see.

He still has ice in his eyes.

Clint rolls his shoulders. "I shouldn't fly them at that target," he admits. "It dulls the points."

The wolf looks at the target down the field, his eyes narrowed against the glare. Fog is swirling over the melting frost. "Have you ever shot at a living target?" he asks.

Clint's fingers tighten around the bow. "Nein," he says. He hears it; feels it form in his mouth. The rest of the words fall easily; he doesn't have to think about them and he doesn't wonder why it's happening. "I've thought about it," he says.

They walk together to the target, their shadows stretching long and dark in front of them. Clint watches his enormous shadow and he thinks of giants and fairytales.

"Would you ever shoot one at a man?" the wolf asks. He runs his thumb over the fletching on one of Clint's arrows. Clint feels it against his own thumb.

"Yes," Clint says after a moment. "If I had to. If it was the right thing to do."

The wolf looks at him; squints against the morning sun. "How do you know when it's the right thing to do?"

Clint shrugs, and taps his fist against his chest. "You know," he says. He remembers the velvety grain of the cushions in Madam Midnight's tent, and the fletching on his arrows against the pad of his thumb. "You feel it. When something is… when something _is._ "

The wolf presses the tip of the arrow against his palm, hard enough to draw blood. Clint feels the blood running down his own fingers.

 

* * *

 

The car is burning. Clint can smell hot motor oil and bubbling paint beneath the heat of it.

And something else. Something else beneath the chemical fumes. Something organic.

He looks sideways at the boy beside him.

The wolf stares into the flames and says nothing, but Clint can feel it. Clint can feel the hardness there, and the anger, and helplessness and fear. 

He grits his teeth and he thinks about what it's like to try and take hold of your own future, and stay alive, and feel safe. He thinks about all of this and he can see memories that aren't his own, overlapping in his mind, making his head ache.

He thinks about Madam Midnight, staring into her crystal ball and seeing his future all wrapped up in someone else's. 

"I'm the hawk," Clint says quietly. He can taste the oil fumes in the air.

The boy — the wolf — nods, but he doesn't take his eyes from the fire. "My name is Wolfgang," he says.

 

* * *

 

 

"There's another one in the top-right window," the wolf whispers.

Clint is barely surprised when he shows up now. The wolf is like an imaginary friend that unlocks his subconscious and brings his attention to things he needs to notice.

"I'm glad you're making yourself useful," Clint murmurs, training his next arrow towards the window. The sash window is raised only a couple of inches. Clint feels his muscles drawing tight as he steadies his aim. A shadow staggers as the arrow flies under through the window gap and thuds into the front of his kevlar. He falls when the explosive tip punches into life.

"Nice," the wolf says, clearly impressed. "This is why they call you Hawkeye, see?"

"I think the name came before the arrows," Clint says, loading another arrow and remembering Madam Midnight.

_I see a hawk._

_And a wolf._

"It is a better name than  _Clint,_ " Wolfgang says mockingly. 

Clint eyes the empty street, watching for anything else moving or crouching in the darkness. "Are you sure you want to choose that particular hill to die on, _Wolfgang_?"

Wolfgang gives a low laugh, and Clint grins at the sound. 

 

* * *

 

"She's a fucking spider!" Wolfgang hisses in his ear.

Clint grits his teeth. "I don't have time for this right now."

Black Widow watches Clint warily, her arms folded. "Neither do I," she says coolly.

It takes Clint a moment to realize she's speaking German, in response to his own suddenly-uttered phrase.

"Fuck," he says. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head at her. "I'll be right back."

"Hawk," the wolf says, squeezing himself into the bathroom with Clint. "She is very out of your league. Professionally."

Clint raises his eyebrows. "You want a shot at her instead?"

Wolfgang smirks back at him. "You're doing it wrong."

"She's going to be gone when I go back out there," Clint says in despair. His stomach is in knots. He tries not to think about what Fury and Coulson might do to him if he goes back and says he tried to offer Black Widow a deal instead of killing her like he was supposed to.

"She's tired of running," Wolfgang says. "Don't you know what that feels like?"

Clint rubs at the headache building behind his eyes. "You know I do."

Wolfgang taps at his head. "Use your head."

"That'd be easier if you kept out of it," Clint says grumpily, pushing past him to get to the door.

 

* * *

 

Clint feels the same kind of cold as the wet streets in Berlin. It chills him and makes him ache and burn in a way that hurts all the way down to his smallest cells.

Loki whispers instructions in his ear, and Clint follows. Some small part of him thinks of wizards and magic, and fortune tellers.

 _You are a very important young man,_ Madam Midnight says, her voice smooth and smokey in his memories.

She hadn't thought to tell him about this. There had been no warnings about any of _this._

Loki laughs, and his eyes glitter at Clint.

Clint waits for Wolfgang to come and help him; come and tell him what to do or talk to him about how you're supposed to kill a god of mischief.

But Wolfgang never comes.

 

* * *

 

"She has strapped you down," Wolfgang says, sounding impressed. "I told you she was out of your league."

"You should try a new line," Clint says, squinting up at him. He still has a blinding headache. "Where the hell were you?"

Natasha glances at him and sighs. "Wolfgang?"

"Yeah." Clint leans back into the padded bench.

"You disappeared!" Wolfgang says accusingly. "I couldn't feel you. Even the smell was gone." He pinches his nose and grins at Clint. "I can always smell you coming."

"That's Madam Midnight," Clint reminds him.

"So explain this, Hawk," Wolfgang accuses suddenly. "These others — the cop and the DJ? And — and the others? They don't smell as bad as you."

"Who?" Clint's head is throbbing.

Wolfgang snaps his fingers as he tries to remember. "Cop — Chicago cop. And Riley? And… Kala." He swallows and looks away.

Clint is too irritable to ask him again what he means. "Kind of dealing with a situation here, Wolf," he says.

"You disappeared!" Wolfgang says vehemently. "And now there are too many others! What the fuck is going on?"

"What others?" Clint asks. Through his headache, he wonders if there's something deeper running with Loki's plan. How many other people across the world are feeling that bone-deep ache and hearing whispers? Is Loki planting voices in Wolfgang's head, too?

"You disappeared," Wolfgang says, looking at him stonily. "And other people moved in." He taps his temple.

"He's gone now," Clint says. "Nat knocked him out of there. Literally knocked him out of there."

Natasha unbuckles Clint's wrist straps. "We have to go," she reminds him. "Cap's waiting."

"Right," Clint says, trying to realign his mind to the mission at hand. Loki.

Loki, not in his head.

He grinds the heels of his hands against his eyes. "I couldn't hear you either, Wolf," he says. "Loki took up all the space, I guess. I tried to think about you a few times and see if you could get him outta there. But…" He looks up at Wolfgang.

Wolfgang stares back at him. "It felt like you were dead," he says helplessly. "And I think when you were gone, something else was born."

 

* * *

 

Clint stares up at the ceiling. There is an eerie silence hanging over the city, like all the noise — the sirens, the breaking glass, the crumbling brick, the screaming and ripping and tearing of everything at the seams — got erased away when the rift closed over. Now there is only quiet.

"Aliens," Wolfgang says from the corner of the room. He sounds impressed.

Clint slings his arm across his eyes. "Yeah."

"I am not surprised."

"No?"

"If a fortune teller's magic can be real, aliens can be real, Hawk. Why not?"

Clint doesn't answer. His body is still throbbing. His jaw aches from clenching it so tightly. He is wound with guilt and fear.

"Hawk." Wolfgang's voice is gentle. "I thought you were dead."

"So did I," Clint says. He thinks maybe it would be better if he _was_ dead. He doesn't say as much, but he learned a long time ago he doesn't actually have to say things out loud for Wolfgang to know about them.

"I talked to the others," Wolfgang says hesitantly. "Nobody else has you in their head."

"Lucky them," Clint says. He shifts his arm so he can see Wolfgang. The city grid is dark — power hasn't been restored yet, though Clint knows Tony is holed away somewhere working on it. There's no moon. Wolfgang is barely a silhouette against the window.

"Do you think I'm mad?" Wolfgang asks. "Crazy, I mean?"

"Of course I do," Clint retorts. "Half the shit you do? C'mon. Of course you're crazy."

Wolfgang scoffs a laugh and sits on the edge of Clint's bed. "I used to think of excuses for why you'd come visit. Or why I could visit you. I thought I had a condition." He waves his fingertips towards his head.

Clint does't say anything. He thinks back to the heavy heat of Madam Midnight's tent.

_I see a hawk, and a wolf._

_You are a very important young man._

"Aliens are real," Clint says eventually. "So are gods, and superheroes, and scientists with big green monsters inside them."

"And fortune tellers," Wolfgang muses quietly.

"Mm." Clint nudges him with his foot. "I'm tired."

"Nomi hacked into SHIELD today."

"Who did?"

"Nomi. She's in my head. Like you, but not like you."

"Fucking hell," Clint says.

"It's different with them," Wolfgang says. "Stronger. Like I _am_ them. And they're me."

"They have my condolences," Clint says.

"She hacked into SHIELD. She says we were lucky. Today was the best day to try. Because of the aliens."

Clint gives a tired grin at how childishly impressed and envious Wolfgang sounds.

"You should come and work for SHIELD," he says, rolling over and burying his face in his pillow.

Wolfgang ignores him. "I'm not in your medical file."

"No."

"I'm not anywhere."

"I know."

"Why not?"

"I didn't want you in there. Nat only knows about you because you show up so often when she's around. And she can read me like a damn book; it's too hard to keep secrets from her."

"I could keep secrets from her."

"Fuck off," Clint laughs, rolling over again to look at Wolfgang's dark shadow. "I'm tired. I can't deal with the idea you've got a bunch of other imaginary friends right now."

"Why do you think we can do this?" Wolfgang asks. "Why do you think we're connected?"

"I don't know," Clint says honestly. "Life is full of strange circumstances, Wolf."

"Hm."

Clint can imagine the exact expression on Wolfgang's face. He can feel the dissatisfaction radiating from him; he can _hear_ it if he listens — all of Wolfgang's thoughts, tumbling over and over and trying to make sense of a connection they've never had answers for.

"You don't have anyone new in your head?"

Clint remembers Loki, pressing against the walls inside his head, cold and numbing and hypnotic. "No one is in my head," he says softly.

"Except me," Wolfgang reminds him.

"Except you." Clint looks at him again. "I don't mind you being there."

"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Wolfgang says with a grin.

Clint slings his arm across his eyes again. "Tell me about these others," he says. "How did they get in your head?"

"I don't know. But none of them have felt something like this before." He sounds uncomfortable. "I don't like being the expert in this, Hawk."

"Tell me about them."

Wolf sighs and rubs his face. Clint can hear his stubble rasping under his palm. "This is going to be a very long story," he says.

 

* * *

 

It's snowing in Berlin — a picture-perfect postcard of neat white rooftops and smooth, softened streets.

"Fucking shit," Wolfgang says, kicking it from his boots. "I can't feel my toes."

"How's the research going?" Clint asks.

Wolfgang gives a soft laugh. "I have stopped asking," he says. He glances aside and shakes his head slightly.

"Who is it?" Clint asks curiously.

"Nomi."

Clint shifts his weight, trying not to feel jealous. Wolfgang belonged to him _first_ , the connection was theirs _first._ The Sensates are stronger and closer than Clint can ever get to Wolfgang, and he wants to find out why. It's an itch beneath his skin; something that has been there since he was eight years old, and he wants to scratch it and scratch it.

For once, Wolfgang is more relaxed about it. "There must be others out there for you," he says reasonably. "I cannot be the only one. There is no sensible reason for the old fortune teller to knit us together like this." He crosses his fingers in a crude demonstration, and shrugs.

"Maybe I can ask Tony or Bruce to try and wire something up," Clint suggests. "Get inside my head."

Wolfgang runs his hands through his hair. "Last time someone was in your head, it felt like you were dead," he reminds Clint. "Now you want to let more people in?"

"Anyone would think you were worried about me," Clint says.

"Only about how much more your brain can take," Wolfgang says seriously. "Don't be too hard on the poor little thing, Hawk."

 

* * *

 

"Behind you!"

Clint turns, not knowing why, not controlling his own movement, and he punches the agent coming in close, kicks him in the chest for good measure as he falls.

The knife clatters to the floor.

Wolfgang kicks it away.

"Holy shit," Clint says. "Is that what it's like for you with the others? I didn't even feel you coming before you took over."

"What are you, a fucking amateur?" Wolfgang says. "He was clomping after you like a horse. You didn't hear him?"

"I guess not." Clint darts a glance around the hallway and keeps going, faster now, adrenaline surging through his veins. He's been made, and he's still a long way from safety.

Wolfgang follows him. "I've already felt you dead before," he reminds Clint. "It was unpleasant, Hawk."

"I wasn't dead," Clint says. "It was Loki."

"It felt the same. On your right."

Clint notches an arrow and dispatches the guard quietly, before he's spotted.

"I keep coming and saving your life," Wolfgang says. "Least you could do is try and help me get some answers."

"Fuck you," Clint says, insulted. "You have seven other people you can ask. It's just me, Wolf, and I'm trying to live my own life over here."

"Fuck you too!" Wolfgang says. "Fuck you, too, Hawk."

 

* * *

 

"Nomi thinks you were supposed to be part of our cluster," Wolfgang says, watching Clint pace back and forth in front of him.

The evening is cold and bright. Wolfgang is sitting with a beer, snowflakes glittering on the wooden table in front of him. It's Saturday evening in Berlin.

"She thinks you were supposed to be born with us," Wolfgang says, like it's a completely normal sentence, "but Loki was in your head instead."

"But you and I were connected before that," Clint reminds him. "And it's different to what you have with them. It's not as… clean."

Wolfgang grins at his choice of word. "If you like," he says.

"But Loki stopped us from… from being better at this? At being closer?" Clint asks.

"It's her theory." Wolfgang shrugs.

"I hate him even more now," Clint says.

Wolfgang looks amused. "Sometimes it sounds like you want to fuck me," he says.

"Don't flatter yourself."

He gives that old wolfish grin again. "You should come to Berlin," he says.

"To fuck?" Clint raises his eyebrows.

"No," Wolfgang says. "To help with the answers. Nomi is trying… the others are getting there. It is hard being the one with the most practice. I don't like having to be the leader."

Clint is about to call him a liar, but something stops him. He understands what Wolfgang means. Sometimes it's easier to pretend there's still a lone wolf inside of you, wanting to pull away from everything and keep to the shadows.

Watching everyone, instead of being watched.

 

* * *

 

"So they can like... mind link?" Sam asks. 

"Yeah." Clint peels the label from his beer bottle. "It's more like visiting, though. Like when he's here he's just... he's  _here_ , you know? Not in my head. I mean, in my head but... I can see him, and feel him." 

Sam opens another beer and passes it to Clint silently.

"I think Wolfgang's cluster..." Clint trails off in embarrassment as he says the word aloud, but Sam doesn't look at him with any sort of judgement. 

He tries again. "I think Wolfgang's friends," he says, "have a better connection. It happened suddenly for them, and recently. I've known Wolfgang since I was eight. We were both..." He trails off again. He remembers standing next to Wolfgang in that dark street, watching the burning car, the anger radiating from Wolfgang like a heat of its own. 

"Man, I can't explain half the shit I've seen these past few years," Sam says, leaning back into the couch. "Sometimes it's better not to try." He tilts his beer at Clint. "You should tell him to come by for a drink sometime. In real life, I mean." He grins.

Clint grins back at him and sips his beer. "Maybe," he says. 

 

* * *

 

 

It's Natasha's idea to go looking for Madam Midnight.

"You should get your future read again," she says. "If you're too chicken to go and _actually_ visit Wolfgang."

Clint doesn't rise to the bait, but he think she has a point. There's something holding him back from chasing Wolfgang down.

Madam Midnight, however.

Madam Midnight might be chased down.

 

* * *

 

Everything is harder without SHIELD's resources. Clint has never had to be a secret agent without that kind of power behind him, and he's not as good at being without it as Natasha is.

Sometimes he's seized by the paranoia that Natasha is out there looking for Wolfgang herself, trying to satisfy her own curiosity. She's found people with less information than a first name before; she'd be able to track him down.

But he thinks she'd ask. He thinks she knows that Wolfgang is somehow off limits.

"Off limits?" Wolfgang asks from the passenger seat. "I didn't know you could be so possessive."

"Yes you did," Clint says. "And stop reading my head. It's rude."

"Country music?" Wolfgang leans forward to fiddle with the radio. "Hawk…"

"You try and find anything else out here," Clint says, annoyed with his own defensive attitude. Sun-bleached fields are rolling past the window, tawny yellow under a wide blue sky.

Wolfgang grins at him, and Clint tries to uncoil his muscles.

"You are too easy," Wolfgang says. "You let yourself get angry. It will get you killed."

"I really don't think I need survival skills from _you_ , thanks," Clint says.

Wolfgang shifts in his seat and sighs. He looks out the window. "So where are we going?"

"To find Madam Midnight."

"You think she will give us answers?"

"If you've got a better idea, let me know and I'll turn around right now and go home."

"You said I have seven other people to help me find answers," Wolfgang reminds him. "You have a cluster of your own, you know."

"The Avengers aren't a fucking cluster," Clint says impatiently. 

"I've felt you with them," Wolfgang says, and Clint feels helplessly laid bare. "They are family to you." 

"It's different," Clint insists.

"Why?"

"Because there's no... I mean, imaginary telepathy, or like, fucking teleporting to Berlin at any given moment. Nothing about this connection to you makes any sense."

"So why," Wolfgang asks, "are you wanting to chase down a con artist fortune teller instead of using your actual friends to help you find answers?" He shakes his head. "You fucking idiot." 

Clint tightens his fingers around the steering wheel, and they drive in silence for a while.

Wolfgang eventually talks again. Softly. "Nomi was wrong. You were never supposed to be in my cluster."

Clint swallows. He's annoyed, and frustrated, and freaked out. "Why not?" he asks, not sure he wants to know the answer, even if it  _is_ an answer, and all they have right now is questions.

"Because your birthday is wrong. The rest of us were all born on the same day. You're not."

Clint rubs his aching forehead. "You're not a Gemini, are you?" he asks tiredly.

"Leo." Wolfgang grins. "The lion."

Clint laughs and shakes his head. "Madam Midnight never mentioned a fucking lion."

 

* * *

 

It's a different circus. Or maybe two or three struggling circuses cobbled together. The tents are grubby and the colored canvas is faded.

Madam Midnight's tent is on the edge of the field. It looks smaller than Clint remembers. It looks childish and harmless.

"Come on," Wolfgang says urgently. "We don't have all day, Hawk."

Clint sighs, and lets Wolfgang lead the way.

The scent hits him first. It's familiar and haunting. It reminds him of Wolfgang; of dark shadows with his bow in his hand; of snow-covered streets in Berlin.

Madam Midnight's voice has lost its smokey allure. She sounds dry and cracked; witch-like. "I wondered when the wolf would come to my door," she says, and she laughs and laughs, and coughs into her dark, draping sleeves.

Clint sits opposed her in the dim light. The velvet cushions feel worn beneath his palms. The crystal ball looks smaller and less mysterious.

"Trinkets," Wolfgang mutters, sitting beside him. The tent is so narrow they are pressed thigh to thigh. Clint can feel him as though he's physically there.

"The hawk and the wolf," Madam Midnight says. Her eyes are cloudy now, but they still glitter in the darkness.

"We want answers," Clint says bluntly. "And be straight about it this time. No fairytale animal stories."

"Ah," Madam Midnight says, "but the spider, and the falcon, and the ant? So many are part of your story, dear boy."

"Fucking witches," Wolfgang says, shuffling impatiently beside him. "Fucking witches never tell the truth."

"Kindred spirits," she says. She eyes them both; Clint has never seen anyone look right at Wolfgang before. 

"Why are we linked like this?" Clint asks impatiently. "You saw it! You saw it when I was eight years old. Why Wolfgang? Why not Nat, or Steve, or Tony?"

"Or Will, or Riley, or Sun?" Wolfgang asks. "Why am I the only part of Clint's cluster? Why do I have two clusters?"

"That is a very long story," Madam Midnight says. "You cannot expect me to explain every stitch in the fabric of the universe."

"We have time," Clint and Wolfgang answer fiercely.

Madam Midnight looks directly at Wolfgang again. Clint feels a shiver go down his spine.

"You do not," she says, "have time. Whispers is coming."

Wolfgang tenses.

"Who is Whispers?" Clint asks. He turns to Wolfgang and asks him. "Who is Whispers?"

"Fuck," Wolfgang says, and then he's gone, and the warmth at Clint's side is gone with him.

"Fuck," Clint says, annoyed. He looks over at Madam Midnight. "Who is Whispers? Why are Wolfgang and I connected? How did it happen?"

"I only tell what will be," Madam Midnight says. "Not what caused it to happen."

Clint glares at her. "I didn't drive all this way to leave with no answers."

"The answers will matter less and less to you," she says. "How the connection was sparked into being is the least important part, young man. Even your wolf understands this now."

Clint waits indignantly for Wolfgang to show up again, but he doesn't.

"The connection _is_ ," she says. "That is the most important thing to understand. When you stop feeling for the seed which started it, you will understand what it has grown into."

 

* * *

 

Clint watches the sun sink lower, and the shadows stretch longer. The city lights grow brighter against the fading light. 

Wolfgang has disappeared, and Clint finds he can't step towards him as easily as he'd like to. The connection keeps breaking, but not before Clint can feel the tension and worry Wolfgang is feeling at the other end. 

_Whispers is coming._

Clint's mouth feels dry. The name sends a cold, crawling feeling down his spine. 

He thinks about Wolfgang and his cluster. Connecting across the world, stepping through physical space like it doesn't exist. 

Kindred spirits. 

Family.

He draws a breath, and turns away from the window.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony takes it as a personal insult that he can't seem to track down anything on Whispers. "You couldn't ask Lady Fortune to give you a little more detail on this supposed dangerous psychopath?" he asks Clint.

"She only talks in riddles," Clint says, frustrated. He tries for a moment to visit Wolfgang, but he gets pushed away again. He lands back in Avengers Tower with the scent of incense burning in his nostrils and Wolfgang's frustration and fear tensing his shoulders.

Wolfgang is so much better at the connection — building it or breaking it, he's evidently had more practice, and Clint doesn't know how to get around being rebuffed.

_When you stop feeling for the seed which started it, you will understand what it has grown into._

"I should have tried to find out more with my instinct," Clint says, realizing too late he's been too cautious and too withheld to gain an understanding of it himself. Wolfgang's visits to Clint greatly outnumber Clint's visits to Wolfgang. He wonders if that makes a difference in their abilities.

He tries again, stepping through space and reaching out to him, but the connection breaks immediately.

 _Fuck you, I'm trying to help you_ , he thinks fiercely.

The idea that maybe Wolfgang is trying to isolate him to keep him safe doesn't bring much comfort.

Tony watches him for a moment. "You know," he says, obviously impatient with Clint's lack of progress, "you have a wealth of resources at your fingertips here. Including transport."

Clint sighs and rubs a hand over his face. "You're right," he says. "Time to call in the reinforcements."

Wolfgang doesn't appear, but Clint thinks he can feel a little relief from him anyway. 

 

* * *

 

"He's gone off grid," Clint explains, pacing back and forth.

Steve, Sam and Nat sit side-by-side on the couch, watching him.

"You can't visit him at all?" Natasha asks.

"He keeps pushing me away. Blocking me." Clint shakes his head. "I don't know how he's doing it. He's better at this than me."

"And he hasn't mentioned this Whispers fellow before?" Steve asks.

"I don't think so," Clint says. "But he's scared of him. Or maybe scared for the others. His cluster."

"And you definitely trust this guy?" Sam asks. "You know this threat is real?"

"I know he considers the threat real. And I trust him. He's saved my life," Clint says. "Numerous times. Least I can do is try and save his."

"For God's sake," Natasha sighs, handing a phone out to him. "Just call him, Barton."

He stares at her. "You have his number?"

She gives him a small, slightly-apologetic smile. "As a backup," she says. "Mystic mental fortune teller connections seem a little unreliable."

"Can't believe this country's phone service is a better option," Sam mutters.

Clint takes the phone and hits dial.

"What are you doing?" Wolfgang asks impatiently, suddenly standing beside him again. His phone is ringing in his hand.

"You won't answer me," Clint says. "Pick up."

"I'm busy," Wolfgang says.

"Hi Wolfgang," Natasha says.

"Hi Wolfgang," Steve and Sam echo.

Wolfgang pinches the bridge of his nose.

"You wanted me to get my cluster involved," Clint reminds him. "We don't have the connection, Wolf. So this is how we do things."

Wolfgang looks helplessly at the three on the couch, who are staring at Clint, waiting for an update.

"I can't let you get involved in this, Hawk," he says, looking at Clint. "It's too dangerous. Whispers already has Will and Riley in his sights. I can't let him have you too."

"What does he want?"

Wolfgang looks tired. "It's a long story."

"I'm sick of hearing that," Clint says angrily. "Let me help. Do you think I can't handle myself?"

"I think my connection with you is weaker," Wolfgang says. "It's vulnerable."

"You asked me for help once," Clint reminds him. "You wanted me to help you find answers."

"Answers aren't so important anymore," Wolfgang says. His jaw is tight. "This is war."

"That's something we're pretty good at," Clint offers, gesturing to Natasha, Steve and Sam on the couch.

Sam leans towards Steve and stage-whispers in his ear. "Good at what?"

"Fighting," Natasha guesses.

Wolfgang sighs and smiles at her. "She is good." 

Natasha grins at Clint.

Clint keeps pressing. "Let us come and help you. The Avengers aren't a cluster, in your sense of the word, but —"

Wolfgang shakes his head. "We can handle it," he says. He grins with genuine fondness. "You are letting your possessiveness get in the way. It will be okay, Hawk. The cluster has my back."

"The Avengers have mine," Clint argues.

Wolfgang claps his shoulder and squeezes it warmly. "I will see you again," he says. "I need you to stay here, Hawk. Outside my cluster."

"I need you _in_ mine!" Clint argues, but Wolfgang has gone.

Steve, Sam and Natasha stare back at him.

"Well?" Steve asks.

Clint flexes his fingers, and rolls his shoulders. "The whole cluster is in danger."

"From Whispers?" Natasha asks.

Clint nods.

Steve leans forward. "What can we do?"

Clint remembers Madam Midnight. The hawk and the wolf. What the seed can grow into; what will be.

 _You have a cluster of your own, you know,_  Wolfgang had said.

Clint looks at Steve, at Sam, at Natasha. He thinks of Tony, of Bruce, of Thor.

He clenches his fists. "Suit up."

 

* * *

 


End file.
